The day starts with a warm engine and a pull-cord, with the steady back-and-forth of the mower and the last stubborn feet finished by hand where the deck can't reach. Gardner's Landscaping cuts and keeps lawns in Beverly, Massachusetts — a city of granite ledge and salt air, brick mill streets sloping down toward the harbor, yards that come up thick in the damp coastal summer. There is a plain satisfaction in the finish: stripes laid straight across a side yard near Prides Crossing, an edge trimmed crisp along the walk, clippings blown off the drive before the truck pulls away. Lawn care on this stretch of the North Shore means staying with the grass the whole green length of the year — the shaggy rush of April, the slow burn of July, the long amber cool of October — so a yard holds its shape and reads as cared for from the road.